The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has outlined its approach to making ex-gratia payments due to avoidable delays in its complaint handling.

The regulator said it will make payments where there have been “avoidable delays” which have led to it taking longer than the timeframes set out in the Complaints Scheme to provide a full response to a complaint.

The FCA said it will consider making an ex-gratia payment where the response time from the date it received the complaint (excluding the duration of any deferral) is over four months.

For delays of up to six months the regulator said it would consider a payment of £50 to be appropriate, for up to eight months £75, for up to ten months £100, and for up to 12 months £125.

For avoidable delays of over a year the regulator would expect to make a goodwill payment of between £150 and £250.

These payment levels are guidelines and the FCA said it will continue to assess all complaints and ex-gratia payments on their individual merits.